The Principals of Six Sigma Methodology and how it can help your Business- Creating Change Agents

           There are many different aspects in build into an employee and leader. You need to teach them the basic knowledge of their job, the company and industry they work in, and the skills to succeed in the company. One issue I find with businesses is that they train and build education for their employees on the position they are currently in, not the position they want to be in! One aspect of this is creating what we call in Six Sigma a change agent. A change agent is someone who learns skills to advance in a company. These people truly believe in the company they work for and want to help the business succeed in any position they are in. Creating a change agent environment can dramatically improve production, lower turnover, and increase company moral. 

                Change agent versus a victim. Have you ever had an employee who always blames someone or something else? It is never the employees fault they were late, it was the traffic. It was not their fault the report was late, the printer did not work. It was not their fault the presentation was not complete, it was other team members. Sound familiar! We refer to these people as victims. These people will not take responsibility for their mistakes or errors and instead find a way to blame anything else. By not accepting responsibility, they do not grow as a person or employee! The first thing to create a better environment is to get rid of the attitude of having victims. 

                Going back to the same examples above, a change agent approaches mistakes as opportunities as opposed to pointing blame. They were late because they did not leave early enough. The report was late because they waited until last minute to try and print it. The presentation was not complete because they did not contact other members to check status and identify delays. You have the same results in that a mistake was made. The difference in these situations is that the change agent can now take this experience and learn from it to avoid it from happening in the future. They now know that traffic may cause a ten minute delay, so they should leave a little sooner. They should organize their time to make sure they get their report done sooner so if an issue comes up with the printer they have time to find an alternative solution. To prevent the presentation from being late they will now set reminders to check in with team members at the end of the day to see how things are going.

                Creating an environment like this is not easy. It is much easier for someone to point blame then take responsibility for mistakes.  The first step in this is to create a change agent culture. It is important to know the cultures attitude should be non-blaming and non-judgmental.  If an employee makes a mistake, it should be seen as an opportunity to teach everyone about it, but do it in a positive approach. Doing not criticize or make it seem like more of an issue then it is. It is important to teach employees that mistakes are made and to make sure they see mistakes as opportunities to learn and grow. In life, as well as business, 10% is what happens to us, 90% is how we react to it. Having a negative or blaming attitude causes a negative workplace. A Positive reaction or attitude creates a positive and growing environment.

It is also important that every level of the company can make mistakes. If management makes a mistake, it is important to tell employees and not hide it. Hiding it will just lower overall trust and faith of the management team. Once employees do not trust or believe in their management, it creates a negative environment and limits growth and the ability to manage employees. Think of it this way, if your boss does something wrong and hides it instead of admitting it, will you still trust their judgment on issues? Or even worse, if your boss blames the issue on his team (you) for something that he mismanaged, you may lose all faith in them after that. Another important point is to make sure the employee feels they are part of the company. Let them know their concerns and ideas are important to hear by management. You never know what sort of ideas are out there that may actually help the company!

So how does a company start to develop this culture? Growing this culture and philosophy is a complex mixture of balance and support. Create groups that focus on this within your company. Have employees create a committee that focuses on new ways to increase positivity. Generate newsletters, town halls, team meetings, and memos focused on this concept. Teams must support each member by sharing responsibility and for teams to succeed; members must have an environment to grow. You can apply these skills by creating fun and new ways to interact with your employees. It is important to find ways so that if an employee does a good job they are recognized by management and peers. Employee of the month, recognition emails, and rewards for change are just a few ways to promote this. Encourage employees to give recognition when it is due. A “pay it forward” approach is a great way to spread the attitude. Have employees send recognition emails when they feel it is necessary. The employee receives it and gets a feeling of accomplishment and think of a few people that they can send cards to. This is a great way to increase employee satisfaction and reward employees for their good work. Sometimes all it takes is a thank you to feel valuable to a company. One of the most powerful things I know in existence is a kind word and a thoughtful gesture.

Mistakes will be mad. When they are, coaching needs to be done to the employee that creates the issue. It is important to do a pro active approach. Instead of “attacking” them and pointing blame, do a five W approach. Why did this happen? Why did you do it that way? Why did you not ask for help? Why do you think this happened? The questions should vary issue to issue and be formed as the meeting occurs. 

Example:

Question 1- Why did you miss the deadline?

Answer- I forgot it was due today.

Question 2- Why did you forget the deadline date?

Answer- I forgot to put it on my calendar.

Question 3- What do you think would have prevented this issue from happening?

Answer- Setting a reminder and putting it on my calendar.

Question 4- What do you think happened by you missing the deadline and how did it effect the company?

Answer- Since I missed the deadline we missed a deadline for a client lowering the overall customer satisfaction.

Question 5- What will you do differently next time?

Answer- I will make sure that I put items on my calendar as I receive them to prevent any issue in me forgetting.

This simple meeting helps identify the issue, the impact, and the resolution without pointing direct blame. It is important that the setting is not tense or uncomfortable. The employee should know they did something wrong, but be relaxed and not worry that serious consequences may occur (unless it warrants that). It is important to also train management in re-directing the conversation if it starts to go down the “victim lane”. If the employee starts to point blame at anyone or anything, the manager needs to re-direct it back.

Once you get people to accept the change agent attitude, you will see it snowball. The feeling of accomplishment and making a change to a company is contagious and can permanently change the attitude of employees.  By doing this it can help grow and improve a company 1/10^th of a company every day everyday during the 250 work days per year that is 25% improvement per year with a simple philosophy change. This is much better than trying to set up a campaign to get improved results in a one shot initiative in a month to get 10% improvement. Generally these campaigns are short term and require a lot of time and energy.  This reminds me of two phrases I have heard. One being:  “how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time”.  This understanding is that no matter how big the problem, do not try to take it all on at once. Go at it slowly. The other: “What is the difference between poop and fertilizer? They are essentially the same thing but poop is just a form of waste. Fertilizer is the basic component to grow a large, beautiful environment.”